


Monika and the Masks

by SecondPlaceTau



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel), Hotline Miami (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-08-27 00:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16691551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondPlaceTau/pseuds/SecondPlaceTau
Summary: Monika loses control of the world as a new, even darker force seeps in. Strange messages, mysterious masks, and a glitched world will force her to adapt if she wants to survive and be with the only one she loves.





	1. Three Masks

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts right before the end of Act 1 of Doki Doki Literature Club, and from there it'll diverge pretty damn quickly. This is the first story I have ever posted anywhere online, so I'm a bit cautious, but hopefully it'll end up alright!

The first light of dawn finally reached through her window. She hadn’t slept at all last night; she’d been spending all her time talking to Sayori. Well, until Sayori stopped messaging, and after that she was too giddy to go to bed. She had finally done it; she’d finally found a way.

Monika could finally be with the one she loved.

Despite her all-nighter, she wasn’t the least bit tired. In fact, she felt like she had more energy than she’d ever had before. All her efforts, everything she’d done, every last tear shed to break free had been worth it. It would only be a few more hours, and she could finally be with him. Not the shell, the outsider. The one looking in. He would finally understand. She almost started crying out of joy, but she refrained. This wasn’t over just yet. She still needed to explain everything to him. The player, not the husk. She wasn’t sure how much control came from the player and how much came from the character, or whoever had created him. She was sure the player would understand, but the shell would probably panic. The character wouldn’t understand at all, it wasn’t programmed to be able to react to these things. She would have to deal with that.

She quickly gathered up her things when the time came and went off to school. Every second felt like an hour, but finally, after an eternity of waiting, the time came. It was time for the Literature Club to meet. She grabbed her stuff and nearly sprinted to the classroom. When she got there, however, she was met by only Yuri and Natsuki. There was no sign of the character. She looked at the clock: he should have been here by now. 

Trying not to sound nervous or impatient, Monika started to speak.

“Well, at least I’m not the last one here today! Have either of you seen !$(#*(@)?”

But when she tried to speak his name, all that came out was a noise no living creature should be able to make, let alone anything you could call a name. Both of the other girls looked at her strangely.

“Are you okay?” Natsuki inquired, tilting her head slightly.

Monika had no idea what had just happened. She was confused and scared, but she managed to turn it around and made up an excuse as quickly as possible. “U-uh, yeah, just a cough.”

Her weak lie seemed to be enough for the others.

“Oh, well, I hope you’re alright!” Yuri said concernedly. “And no, neither of us have seen Sayori at all today. I think she’s out sick. I hope you’re not catching whatever she has!”

Monika realized that neither of them knew about Sayori yet. She was well-aware of Sayori’s whereabouts, and she was completely unconcerned with her as long as she remained hanging from the ceiling. She played along and pretended that Yuri was correct.

“Oh, I think I’ll be fine. I hope Sayori can join us, the festival is so soon!”

Natsuki responded with her usual lack of grace and friendliness. “She’d better! We don’t even have enough people for a club without her!”

Now this was really getting odd. Had Natsuki completely forgotten about the character? That didn’t seem likely. Maybe she was just angry at him for working with Yuri instead of her over the weekend.

“What do you mean? We’ll still have four.” Monika nearly snapped at the girl in impatience. She didn’t have time for her petty pre-programmed drama with Yuri.

Natsuki looked half-angry and half-confused. “What do you mean? Are you messing with me?”

Monika gave out a sigh. “Do you need me to list them? You, me, Yuri, Sayori, and…” But as she tried to say the character’s name, she couldn’t make a sound. It wasn’t quite like she couldn’t remember, more like she knew the name but her throat was physically blocking her from saying it. It was like the name was a sound that didn’t exist. She tried to spit it out before eventually nearly choking on the silence her vocal chords were enforcing. Natsuki looked at her in angry confusion, while Yuri’s look was one of concern. The purple-haired girl spoke again.

“Monika, are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

Monika stood silent for a moment, almost in shock. What was happening? Why didn’t the others remember the player? Why couldn’t she speak his name? Finally, she gathered herself enough to respond.

“I… I guess not. I think I have to go home.”

Natsuki spoke up once again. “But the festival’s today! We can’t do it with just two people! We spent so much time preparing for this!” 

“I’m sure you two will do fine. I’ll call Sayori, see if maybe she can come back and help. I’m so sorry to go like this, but I actually really don’t think I’m feeling well.”

Yuri, while clearly disappointed, gave comforting words. “If you’re feeling bad, you shouldn’t try to do anything this big. Go home and get some rest, we’ll manage.” Natsuki looked like she wanted to object, but finally grumbled a quick “I hope you feel better soon.”

“Oh, I really do feel bad for this. You guys will do a great job, I know it. Hopefully all I’ll need is a bit of fresh air and I’ll be feeling better in time for the festival.” Without another word, she made her way back into the halls, and soon she had left the school and was running towards the player’s home. When she finally arrived, she stood still, speechless and in shock.

Sayori’s home was there as it had always been, the windows shuttered but otherwise the same as normal. The player’s home, though, was a blackened and charred husk. It looked simultaneously as if it had been abandoned for decades and had been hit by a bomb. It was like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong part of the picture, sticking out blatantly but there all the same. Parts of it seemed to shudder and flash in and out of existence, like it was glitched. People walked by on either side of the street, taking no notice of the charred and flashing former building right next to them.

Monika’s internal worry had turned into complete panic. She had ruined things. Somehow, her meddling had ripped the game apart far beyond repair. Knowing she had only one option, she sat down and tried to calm herself. She knew she shouldn’t try to access to code in this emotional state; she’d end up destroying the game further or even deleting herself. However, if there was even a tiny chance she could fix this and see the player again, it was worth all the risk. She had to try. 

For a few moments, she probed with her mind, trying to grab onto the strands of data that made up her world. Instead, as soon as she pushed even a little, the entire world froze. She couldn’t move. Her vision was marred by a white, flickering bar across the center of her sight, and her field of view in general seemed to jump back and forth a tiny bit. It was like her vision was a stopped VHS tape. In the top-right corner, the word PAUSE and the accompanying symbol jumped out in white text. She wanted to scream, to run, but she couldn’t. The world was frozen. She couldn’t even blink. In desperation, she looked back to the code, trying to find her way out, but instead of lines of text she found four bolded words, jumping out at her in her trapped mind:

PLAY

REWIND

CONFIG

EJECT

Judging from the massive text in the corner, this was a pause screen, but Monika had seen the game’s pause screen before, and this was not like that at all. The other one was bright and pink and flowery, not silent and basic like this one. Besides, she’d never accidentally opened the pause menu when changing the code before, and the pause menu had never blocked her from accessing the code. Pulling her mind together, she focused on the word PLAY with all her mental strength.

The VHS filter disappeared and the world started up again. Monika stumbled forwards and nearly fell face-first, but she managed to recover and regained her balance. The ruins of the player’s house continued to loom ominously in front of her. Monika looked around, but nobody was acting as if anything had happened. That was good, that meant Monika was still the only one who knew. She gathered her thoughts and wondered what she would do now.

If she really couldn’t access the code any more, she only had a few remaining options. She could just continue forwards in this timeline and maybe figure out what had happened. Then again, this timeline could be dangerous and corrupted, as exemplified by the player’s house, and if anyone found out her role in what had happened to Sayori it would be catastrophic. Her other option was to use this new menu. The “REWIND” button seemed pretty clear in its purpose. That idea wasn’t without its issues, though. She had no idea how far back it would rewind her, or if she would retain her memories. What if she rewinded to this morning with her memory wiped and relived this day until she decided to rewind again, and then repeated that again and again and again, living an endless cycle of loss, fear, and disappointment? No, it was too risky. Neither option was very good, but what else could she do? She didn’t even want to think about what could go wrong if she hit the “EJECT” button.

She stood there for a few minutes, going back and forth trying to figure out what she could do next. It felt like her mind was on fire. Finally, she brought up the new pause menu again and hovered over the “REWIND” button, but rather than select it she brought the menu down again. She’d made her decision. She had to find out what had happened here, and the REWIND button would be there later if she needed it. She steeled herself, took a deep breath, and walked towards the flickering ruin in front of her.

\--

The instant she passed through the doorway, she regretted her decision. The inside of the house was somehow both chillingly cold and uncomfortably warm and damp. She had no idea how that was possible, but her world followed the whims of the code and not the rules of logic. Countless flies buzzed around the flickering lights and shredded furniture, and she saw several rats scuttle into their little holes as she walked by. She shuddered, but managed to keep going. As she looked to the side, she realized that the windows didn’t show the outside. They showed a dark, swirling void of stars, endless emptiness where there should have been suburban comfort. No sunlight shone through the dark nothingness. 

The stairs creaked and groaned beneath her as she climbed them, but they held her and did not break. As she reached the top, she saw the door to what she presumed was the player’s room left wide open. All the other doors in the house had been left closed. Bracing herself for the worst, she slowly creeped closer and closer until she finally reached the door’s frame. She gasped out loud when she saw what was inside.

Three people, each wearing a different animal mask, occupied the eery room. To the left sat a girl in a beautiful sleeveless violet dress, wearing what looked to be a horse mask. She was looking out of the window, staring into the swirling nothing. Every inch of her arms was covered with scars, some old and healed, some fresh and a few cuts even still bleeding. She noticed long, purple hair emerging from the sides of the mask. Yuri? Monika tried to say, but she could only think it. Her mouth was sealed shut as if it were glued.

To the right of the room, standing and tapping her foot impatiently, was a smaller girl, her face obscured by an owl mask. Even though her facial expression was completely hidden, Monika could almost feel a pure aura of hostility and disdain coming from her. She didn’t even seem to pay attention to Monika’s entrance. She was very thin, bordering on malnourished, and through the holes in the mask Monika could see that one of the girl’s pink eyes was bruised. Pink eyes- this one was Natsuki.

That only left one more.

In the center of the room, a girl wearing a rooster mask stared silently at Monika as she entered. Her neck was bruised, and seemed to be somehow off, like it had been twisted or broken and then forced back into place. Monika tried to see the face through the eyeholes, but rather than showing a person the mask’s eyes showed the same dancing void that could be seen through the windows. Monika didn’t need to see the eyes anyways. She knew this was Sayori. Sayori, who should have been dead and swinging from the rafters in the house next door, was sitting on the ground right in front of her.

Monika tried to speak again, but the words wouldn’t come, whether through her own shock or through some force preventing her. After a few seconds, the girl in the owl mask turned towards her and finally acknowledged her. Her voice was exactly like Natsuki’s and totally alien at the same time.

“What are you doing here? Nobody invited you!”

Monika simply couldn’t respond. The girl with the horse mask turned to face her and spoke after the owl, talking in a tone that was half-curious and half-condescending, as if she pitied Monika. Like the owl, her voice matched Yuri’s, but seemed to be from another world.

“Hmm. I didn’t expect you to make it this far. I wonder if you coming here is a good or a bad turn of events.”

The rooster never broke line of sight, and continued to stare as she spoke in turn. Her voice was like the other two’s, but it was also a bit raspy, like the vocal chords or throat had been damaged.

“You recognize us, don’t you? Well, at least you think you do. We aren’t them.” She paused before speaking again. “What did you really hope to achieve? Did you truly think your plan would work? And did you really think you had to do what you did to complete it?”

The horse spoke again, her tone softer. “Sometimes we do things without realizing their consequences. It’s a fact of life. I wonder if you didn’t realize the true consequences, or if you just didn’t care. I like to believe it’s the former.”

The rooster spoke again, her empty eyes seeming to rip right into Monika’s soul. “You came here looking for him. The ‘player’, as you think of him. He clearly isn’t here, but I don’t want you to leave empty-handed. Perhaps a hint: he is closer than you think.”

With that final cryptic piece of information, Monika blacked out.

Monika woke up, but her eyes remained closed. Across the blackness of her closed eyelids, text reading “SEPTEMBER 22, 2017” faded in. Beneath it, garbled text and symbols with a comma in between tried to display a location, but the glitched letters couldn’t form anything readable. The text faded away after a few seconds and Monika finally opened her eyes. She shot upright and scrambled out of bed, tripping and falling on the floor in her haste. Pulling herself back to a standing position, she rushed over to her phone and checked the date. Sure enough, it was the twenty-second. Everything she had done had been reversed. The universe had been reset.

Then she noticed the rooster mask.

She nearly yelped in surprise. It sat on the floor in front of the doorway, set on the ground to face her bed. Its eyes were like black pits, and though she wasn’t certain they seemed blacker than they should have been in this light, like no light could penetrate the mask. She cautiously moved towards it, half-expecting it to jump at her or for Sayori to re-materialize within it, but no such thing happened. She reached down and grabbed it with both hands, lifting it so that it was at the same level as her face. She stared into its eyes. It did not stare back, a dead object with no thoughts. Still, it gave her the creeps.

She put it down next to her and realized that if everything had been reset, she might be able to access the code. She reached into her mind, but once again all that came up was the crackling filter and strange text. She left the menu and sighed. It had been a long shot anyways. Once she had re-entered normal time, she pulled up her phone once again and realized she had a new message. That was strange; she hadn’t gotten any messages on the morning of the 22nd. She warily pulled up the message and put her phone to her ear. A raspy young male voice spoke through the device.

“Look inside the mask. Go where it says at sunset and make sure to bring Richard with you. You’ll know what to do.”

Monika quickly put her phone away and lifted the mask again, this time looking at the inside. There was a sticky note pasted on the black rubber, an address scrawled on in barely legible handwriting. There was also a tag that simply read “RICHARD”. 

Fuck. This was getting stranger and stranger. Monika had toyed with the idea of time travel once she’d figured out how to code, and she’d even figured out a potential method, but she’d never really thought it could actually happen. Had she been wrong this whole time? What if it wasn’t all a game? After all, the player was gone, but the world continued to march on. No, it had to be a game, there was still a pause menu. Still, something had happened; the world was no longer the same as it had been. She might have been transported back to the same day, but Monika had a dark feeling that things would play out very differently.

\--

Monika didn’t focus at all in school, and she was certain she’d fail anything she’d done that day. She’d underestimated just how boring it would be to go through a day where she already knew everything that would happen. She just couldn’t bring herself to try that hard at all these things she’d done before. By the end of her classes, she felt exhausted despite the fact that she hadn’t put any effort into it all. She would have let the boredom drag on forever, though, if it meant she could avoid the part of this day she was dreading most: the Literature Club. She would dread nothing more than if all the other girls had found out it was all an illusion, how fake the world really was. They would know what she’d done to Sayori and why she’d done it, and what with all that had happened with the girls and the animal masks in the player’s house they may well have figured it all out. The only hope remained in what the girl in the rooster mask had said: “We aren’t them.” The others couldn’t know it was a game; they were merely automatons, incapable of knowing or feeling. That was why Monika had felt no guilt for Sayori. No matter how she tried to convince herself, though, she couldn’t shake that uneasy feeling. She reached the doorway, and with a deep breath, walked into the classroom where the club’s meetings were held.

Just like the first time she’d lived this day out, Yuri and Natsuki had already arrived, but Sayori had yet to make an appearance. The two girls were waiting around in somewhat awkward silence, still unsure of whether they liked or disliked each other. Both seemed relieved that Monika had arrived. Yuri spoke first as she entered.

“Oh hello Monika! How are you?”

Natsuki’s greeting was decidedly grumpier. “Took you long enough.”

Monika smiled apologetically. Well, it doesn’t seem like either of them are any different than usual. This is the exact same as last time. “Sorry, I got sidetracked a little bit. Is Sayori here already?”

Natsuki didn’t vocally accept the apology “No, she’s even later than you. Probably dragging along with that new member she said she’d bring.”

Yuri spoke up excitedly. “Oh, the new member! I had totally forgotten about that! I wonder what she’ll be like?”

“She better be nice! I made these cupcakes for her!”

Aren’t they in for a surprise. Monika realized that Sayori was due to walk in the door in about ten seconds. She braced herself, hoping that maybe, somehow, she’d still have the player with her, that he would have been saved as part of the reset. Then she’d be able to continue her plan, though now that she’d lost access to the code it would be a tad more complicated. She knew she’d find a way, though. Anything for him.

When Sayori walked in, though, she was alone. The character wasn’t with her. Monika let out a slight sigh of disappointment, but deep down she had known this was the way it was now. She put on her happy voice. 

“Welcome back, Sayori! How are you?”

“Good! Sorry I didn’t show up earlier, I got busy with some school stuff.”

Natsuki cut right to the chase. “Didn’t you say you’d be bringing a new member?”

Sayori blushed and looked down in embarrassment. “Oh yeah, uh, that.” She looked honestly ashamed. “I tried and tried, but all of my friends had joined other clubs! Nobody was able to come. I’m sorry I broke my promise…”

Monika couldn’t help but feel sorry for Sayori. With the character gone, she didn’t even have a reason to exist, and she didn’t even know it. Natsuki, however, did not have the same context, and so was not quite as forgiving. “What!? You’re saying I made these cupcakes for nothing?”

Sayori only looked more ashamed. “S-sorry..:”

Monika decided to step in. “It’s alright Sayori, it’s fine. You tried your best, and that’s all you could do. Besides, it’s not like any of us have had any more luck bringing people to the club.”

Yuri nodded, and Natsuki looked a little embarrassed herself. She mumbled, “I’m sorry, I guess. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sorry for being mean.”

Sayori seemed to cheer up. “I’ll make up for it somehow, I promise! And even if there’s nobody new to taste them, I’m still glad you made cupcakes!” She looked at the tray longingly. 

Natsuki noticed, and with a sigh she lifted the foil, revealing a bunch of cupcakes decorated to look like cats. “You can still have one.”

With a little squeak of delight, Sayori rushed over and grabbed one. Her gloom disappeared in an instant, her old smile coming back.“These are so cute!” She quickly took a bite. “And delicious!” Crumbs spilled out of her mouth, but she didn’t seem to notice or care.

“Hey! Did you just say you would get a new member so I’d make cupcakes!?” Natsuki asked indignantly.

“N-no! Well, I knew it might come along with it, but I really did think I could get someone!” Sayori spoke even as she continued to devour the cupcake. Her smile was embarrassed and mischievous at the same time.

“Hmph.” Natsuki made a show of being annoyed, but Monika could tell that she was glad that Sayori liked her cupcakes.

Monika had to stop herself from giggling. She’d forgotten how much she liked this club, and everyone in it. As she watched Sayori, she almost felt guilty for what she had done. She shook her head slightly. She had to stay determined. She had to remember that everything she had done had been necessary. She tried to distract herself by joining in. What exactly had she said last time? Something about everything Natsuki doing being cute. Wait, no, Sayori had said that, and that didn’t happen until the other girls talked with the character for a bit. She had to stop worrying about keeping the timeline consistent; at this point the timeline was too screwed up for any of that to matter anymore. She grabbed a cupcake and bit in. Just as good as last time. She swallowed before she spoke, unlike Sayori. “Wow, Natsuki, I had no idea you were this good at baking!” 

Natsuki wore a proud smile on her face. “Yeah, I guess I’m alright.” 

Monika looked at the clock again. Well, things were at least starting to diverge from last time. She had a feeling that once sunset came, those divergences would become much more pronounced than she would like.


	2. PRESS R TO RESTART

The club ended much the same way, only without the player there. Monika wrapped it up by instructing everyone to write a poem and present it at the next meeting, and with that she left and made her way home. Sayori seemed to be almost lost as she left despite the fact that her house was so close by. Her existence was meaningless without the player. The other two at least had lives of their own and had a backstory that could let them function on their own, but Sayori had known the player her whole life and he was a major part of her story. Did she even have family? Parents? Nobody had even checked her room to find her hanging from the ceiling. 

She walked home alone, taking the long route to her house. It took a good bit more time than the normal way, but it would keep her further away from Sayori and the player’s houses. It wasn’t like she passed by them on her normal route, but still. She wanted to stay as far as possible from the cursed wreck with the masked things. Were they ghosts? Demons? Maybe they were the manifestations of glitches in the code. Had Monika herself created them through her meddling? She really hoped that wasn’t the case. She couldn’t live with the thought that everything she’d done to be with the player had ended up being the things that stopped her.

And then there was the other strange entity at play. The voice on the voicemail. Monika didn’t have the faintest clue who that could be or what they might want. She would just have to wait until sunset, which was still a bit of time away. She had to get home and get changed, and grab that abomination of a mask. “Richard”.

After a bit of walking she was home. She’d overestimated the time she had after taking the long route. She quickly threw on some non-school clothes and grabbed the mask. She looked down and realized what she was wearing. A letterman jacket with a big letter “B” on the front some american exchange student had brought a while back. She had found it left behind in the halls and had brought it home to give it back to him the next day, but he’d left the day after and she’d never had the chance. She didn’t even know why she still had it. She considered changing again, but she decided she would just go with it. She would just barely make it to the address in time as it was. She rushed out the front door, mask under her arm, and made her way with a sense of pure dread.

\--

The address led to a warehouse by the docks. The sun was dipping below the horizon when she finally arrived. Just in time. She looked around nervously. It had said that she’d know what to do when she got here, but she didn’t have the faintest clue what was supposed to happen next. 

Suddenly, a man with messy blonde hair who was dressed in what looked like a green janitor’s outfit bumped into Monika’s shoulder as he walked by. She realized that he’d slipped a note into her hand. She turned to try and get a better look and called out “Hey!” But the man had already faded into the shadows. She looked down at the note in her hand. It had the same handwriting as the address that had been scrawled on the inside of the mask. The message covered most of the small piece of paper. “There’s a dumpster around back. Cardboard box next to it. Use contents to clear warehouse.” That was strange to say the least. “Use contents to clear warehouse”? Was someone fucking with her? Was she just going to clean up this place like a schmuck? She made her way around back, annoyed yet strangely intrigued. Surely enough, there was a sealed cardboard box right next to it. She kneeled down and opened the package, expecting to find a rag or something as some sick joke. She could barely process what she actually found.

It was a handgun.

Monika picked up the gun. It came with a note as well: “Fully loaded. Safety’s off, be careful. Point and shoot.” Her entire mind was overcome with dread as the full weight of what was going on hit her. No, no, this had to be a mistake or something. Why would anyone want her to do this? What could anyone possibly gain? She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t do it! They couldn’t make her, whoever they were. She looked at the note that had been in the box again and realized something was written on the other side as well.

“They don’t matter. He does. Choose wisely.”

Was this note literally responding to her thoughts? She wouldn’t put it out of the realms of possibility, she could probably make something like that with enough time if she still had access to the code. She tried mentally asking it more questions, but the text did not change. Monika supposed that the people who’d written the note had just guessed what she’d think. 

They don’t matter. Monika tried to repress her thoughts, but deep down she agreed. They weren’t real. They were no more alive than the rocks or the bricks. Their code was just a bit more complex. She had even done it before with Sayor- no, that had been different. Hadn’t it? She hadn’t been the one who went and physically killed Sayori, and she had only been guiding her down the right direction instead of this. This, this was killing, this was murder, that had been…

Monika looked at the gun in her hand again. Her grip tightened, but she was careful not to pull the trigger. The other part of the note was maybe more important. “He does.” She didn’t want to believe it, but there was only one person that could be referring to. What did it mean though? They couldn’t be holding the player captive, he lived out there, beyond the code. Even if they captured the character it would just be the hollow shell that he used to interact with the story. What else did that leave? Maybe they could let her contact the player. Maybe they had a way for her to be with him.

“Choose wisely.”

Monika made her decision. She now realized what the mask was for. She put the rooster on her head, braced herself, and walked through the door.

\-- 

The warehouse was wide-open and spacious, typical for a building of its type. As soon as she walked in, Monika saw a man operating a forklift. He looked over and saw her.

“Who are-”

Then he noticed the gun. His eyes went wide.

“Please, wait, I’ll cooperate, I’ll do anything.”

Monika raised the gun. The note hadn’t told her to cooperate. It had told her to clear the place out.

“OKAY OKAY, WHAT DO YOU WANT!?”

She put her finger on the trigger. She knew he was fake, but the fear in his eyes seemed real. The terror in his voice seemed real. The way his body quivered and shook seemed real. She hesitated for a moment and took a breath.

It was just another illusion.

He was just another figment of the code.

He wasn’t real.

She pulled the trigger.

The gunshot echoed loud and angrily through the warehouse, shouting for all to fear it. A hole appeared in the man’s stomach and he fell off the forklift, letting out a short yell. She rushed over to him. He was bleeding profusely. She ended him with a shot to the head. No need to prolong this. Suddenly, what she’d just done hit her. She looked back and forth from the gun to the man she’d just shot. Holy fuck. She was on the brink of vomiting. 

She heard another gunshot. In a split second she wondered if she had accidentally fired the gun again, but the truth quickly bit her far harder. A gun wound appeared in her shoulder, blood seeping out on to her shirt and the letterman jacket. She looked around and saw another worker with a gun in his hand. Why the fuck did a warehouse worker have a gun? She yelled out in pain and the other man prepared to fire again. Monika realized she only had one choice. She paused the game and brought up the menu. Everything froze, but her pain remained. She thought for a second, but really there was only one way to proceed. As soon as she closed the menu she’d be dead. Preparing for the worst, she focused on the REWIND button.

She found herself just inside the doorway again, staring down the worker on a forklift.

“Who are-”

He noticed the gun again. Well, for him it was the first time.

“Please, wait, I’ll coopera-”

Monika raised the gun and fired.

This time, however, she missed. The man yelled loudly and jumped off the forklift to start running. She fired two more shots, managing to hit him in the achilles tendon once. He fell to the ground in a screech of pain. She’d been aiming for the head, but that was still a good shot. She turned to face where the one with the gun would arrive in 3, 2, 1…

As soon as he rounded the corner, gun in hand, she fired four shots in rapid succession, managing to hit him once in the head. He fell to the ground, his skull and the concrete floor making a sickening sound that was like two pool balls hitting each other too hard. She was more prepared this time around, but she still felt sick to her stomach. 

She ran forward, trying to get the jump on anyone else who was in the warehouse. She passed two empty aisles of boxes before seeing another man wearing headphones, seemingly oblivious to what was going on. She aimed carefully this time, mimicking what she’d seen others do in movies. She managed to shoot him in the shoulder. He screamed, and she had to fire two more shots before his shirt was soaked with blood and he couldn’t move thanks to the pain. She wasn’t keeping track of how many bullets she was using, but she felt like it was too many. She moved on and ran the aisles before a man charged at her with a knife in his hand. What were these people doing with guns and knives? Was this a crime operation? No time to think about that, she downed the crazed man with a single shot. 

She looked and saw another three people rounding the corner. They all had guns. Shit! Monika fired her gun at them but only got one, her firearm out of bullets. She ducked down and looked around desperately. She grabbed the only thing she could, taking the knife from the man she’d just shot. In crazed fear she lobbed her empty gun at the the men as they got in line of sight, somehow managing to hit one in the head. He fell to the ground with a yelp. Monika rushed the other one with knife in hand. Her time on the track team payed off. She closed the distance like a cheetah and thrust the knife into his throat. No mercy. He gurgled in agony as neck gushed like a waterfall before she pulled out the knife. He crumpled to the ground, hitting the hard floor with a dull thump. 

She looked and saw the one she’d bonked with her gun starting to stand up. She couldn’t let that happen. She jumped on and pinned him to the ground. She tried to stab him, but in desperation he reached up and grabbed the knife blade itself, holding her back even as his hands ran with blood from long, straight, painful cuts. With no other option, she let go of the knife. Like an idiot, as soon as she did, he did too, the pain too much for him. Monika grabbed the man by each side of his head and began to ram his skull into the concrete as hard as she could. He hadn’t been prepared for that, and he yelled in pain the first two times before he finally got knocked unconscious. One more smack into the floor and he was dead. Or at least an empty shell with soup where his brain used to be. 

Monika stood up and looked at her own hands in shock. What the fuck was happening? How was she able to do all this? How did she know how to kill people like this? 

She fell to her knees and started to sob. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t, she just couldn’t! It didn’t matter that they weren’t real, she just wanted to go back, back when she was on the brink of being with the player, back when she was free, when she was safe. 

The back of her head exploded in agony. She collapsed to the ground, the pain ripping her mind to shreds. Her last sight was a man standing over her, preparing to finish her with a crowbar.

PRESS R TO RESTART

\--

Monika repeated the same variation of events over and over. She learned to pause the game and restart before they could really hurt her, but there were always those times when she couldn’t react quickly enough and she’d get stabbed or shot or punched. The pain was unbearable. She completely broke down and fell into the fetal position more than once. It just hurt too much. She tried leaving the building, but some invisible force kept her inside the warehouse.

Was this hell? Was this punishment for what she’d done to Sayori? She begged for forgiveness, but nothing changed. Please, anything, what did she have to do? She knew deep in her heart that there was only one way out. She should have known the instant she had found that gun. 

That herculean task took longer than she could even guess at, but after countless attempts and against all odds she managed to finally do it. As she stood over the last enemy and put a bullet through his brain, messy text reading “LEVEL CLEAR” splattered across her vision. She threw down the gun and finally left the god-forsaken warehouse.

With all the attempts and failures combined Monika estimated she’d spent anywhere from one to two days of her subjective time inside that pit of darkness. To the rest of the world, maybe half an hour had passed. Monika sat down on a curb, shaking and shuddering. She wanted to break down and cry but she had shed enough tears for a lifetime in there. She just held her head in her hands and waited. 

She waited for at least an hour. There should have been police. Someone should have heard the gunshots, someone in the warehouse should have picked up a phone and called the authorities, but no matter how much she waited nobody came. She almost wanted them to come, to bring her anywhere else. To punish her for what she’d done. It didn’t matter anymore if they weren’t real or if they were just code anymore. 

Finally, she stood up. Her knees were weak and shaking and her eyes were as red as the blood on her hands, but she managed to lift herself to her feet. She took a few steps forwards to make sure she could, and then she slowly but surely began to head back to her house. 

She arrived and cleaned herself up. She’d already made sure the blood wasn’t easily visible so she wouldn’t be questioned on the way home, but it had gotten into every crack and crevice. She showered in scalding hot water and scrubbed until her skin was red, but no matter how clean she looked in the mirror she could still feel the red, sticky blood coating every inch of her body. She wanted to scream, to shriek and let everything out, but all that left her mouth were small whimpers and quivering cries. She finally gave up long after the water was cold and she was more spotless than she’d ever been. She collapsed into her bed and cried herself to sleep.

She woke up in the player’s house again. It was just as grungy and decrepit as it had been the last time. Clouds of flies swarmed around every object. Once again, she was at the entrance to the player’s room, with the strange masked mirrors of her three friends sitting and watching her. Owl-Natsuki was the first to speak yet again.

“Stop crying! You don’t deserve to cry! You’re disgusting!”

The rooster- Richard, Monika realized- spoke in the damaged voice of Sayori as she had the first time they’d met. She spoke as if she was reading Monika’s mind.

“Ah, so you’ve finally figured out my name. That doesn’t mean you know who I am, but it’s a good start.”

The mask glanced downwards ever-so-slightly at Monika’s hands. She looked down and realized that they were once again covered in blood.

“Looks like you’ve been busy. I was wondering how long it would take for this to happen. Not as long as I expected, I must admit.”

Now the figure that looked like Yuri in a horse mask spoke up.

“You cried for a very long time. I had hoped for that. Maybe you aren’t what you seem.”

Richard paused but afterwards continued to talk as if Yuri’s figment hadn’t even raised her voice.

“Your justification is crumbling. The world that you created in which you could do no wrong now falls away.” She gestured to the stars fading away in the window, seemingly symbolic of what she said. “Yet as it becomes darker and darker you so desperately try to make yourself the one and only light, doubling your efforts to alleviate yourself of guilt.”

Natsuki’s voice was now an angry screech, interrupting Richard’s.

“Stop coming here! Nobody wants you! You should be hated for what you’ve done!”

Richard resumed speaking.

“I want you to think very carefully about what you do from here on out. It will be a bit longer before you see us again, but when you do I’m going to have some questions for you. I’ll expect you to know the answers.”

With that, the player’s home faded away into the void once more, leaving only darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is shorter than the last one! I felt like if I kept delaying it too long then I'd never finished so I just put it out. Hopefully I'll be updating this more frequently now that I have more free time.


	3. Clues

Once again, when Monika awoke, she couldn’t open her eyes for a few moments. The date and location presented themselves at the center of her vision, though this time the location was properly displayed. It showed her hometown, though she could swear she saw it flicker once or twice for the tiniest moment to something else she couldn’t quite read. The text went away after a few seconds and she could open her eyes again. They hurt like hell. She was tired and hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep, and what sleep she had gotten had been plagued by those nightmare versions of her friends.

She considered staying home sick that day. She could certainly pull it off; after the events of the previous night combined with her tiredness, she looked like she’d been dragged through hell and back. In fact, she probably was sick and should stay home. However, in spite of her body screaming at her to rest, she dragged herself out of bed and started getting ready for school. She’d slept in a tad and didn’t have enough time, but she hoped nobody would notice how exhausted she was. 

As she went to open the door, she checked her phone and realized there was a message again. Her heart immediately sank. With a sense of dread that tore at her insides like a hideous beast, she opened the message and listened.

“Hi, this is ‘Seijin’ from school. I’m having an awesome costume party. Meet me at this address tomorrow, and make sure to wear your costume.” He went on to recite an address and hung up.

Monika didn’t know a ‘Seijin’, and that was definitely not the voice of a high schooler. She came to the chilling realization that it was the same caller who had left the message yesterday. He was a lot less direct, but she had a feeling he was telling her to do the same thing. She looked up the address and found a suspicious club in a seedy part of town. 

With a shudder, she put her phone away. She had more time to think about it this time, she wouldn’t be forced to do anything until tomorrow. She might not even be forced to do anything then, these people hadn’t shown that they would actually do anything to her if she didn’t comply. There would only be one way to find out, but would it be worth the risk? If they would punish her, who knows what psychopaths like these would do. They made kids kill others, what if they made someone kill her?

These were her thoughts as she walked to school. She couldn’t focus on anything as she shuffled forwards, mumbling a quick greeting and leaving if anyone tried to talk to her. She stared at the pavement in front of her. These people didn’t know what she had done. That she had murdered so many. No, she had been forced to, it wasn’t her fault! As much as she told herself that she had no choice, she couldn’t stop thinking of the sounds of gunshots, the crunch of skulls as she had slammed them into hard concrete, the empty eyes of those she had taken the life from. She hadn’t been forced to take the gun. She could have said no.

After what felt like an eternity, she finally arrived at school. She tried to avoid friends and people she knew, which proved completely impossible after all she’d done over the past few years. Any other day she would have smiled at all the friends she’d made and people she met. Now, it was excruciating every time one tried to approach her. All she wanted was to make it through this day. She wanted to scream at them, “You aren’t real! You’re just code! I might as well talk to a fucking rock!” In the back of her mind, darker thoughts hid. She thought of deleting them all, of snapping their necks and watching the data go dark as their programs stopped functioning. She suppressed those thoughts. She knew what it meant to kill now, and she couldn’t fantasize about it. Yet, the dark thoughts persisted.

She completely zoned out of school. Going through the same day a second time was so unfathomably boring, and she couldn’t even try to keep doing it anymore. She didn’t even care if she got awful grades today. None of it mattered. None of it was real. Who knew, it might just reset again and she would have a chance to do it again. Maybe she’d keep living the same week over and over again for all eternity and none of it would matter the tiniest bit because she would be living in hell. She just couldn’t bother with it.

The day finally ended, and Monika began to head home when a voice called from behind her.

“Monika!”

Monika turned around and saw Sayori looking at her.

“Where are you going? We have to do the literature club!”

Monika had honestly been hoping to avoid the literature club. She’d seen it all already, she’d lived through it all, and now with the ghostly half-imitations of its members haunting her she just wanted to pretend it didn’t exist. Despite that, she tried to fake a grin. It was a complete failure, but it seemed to be good enough for Sayori.

“Sorry, Sayori! Zoned out for a second.”

“That’s okay! I’ll walk there with you.”

Just her luck. Now she would be accompanied by the last person on earth she wanted to be with. Monika reluctantly headed over to Sayori’s side and they began to walk to the literature club. Sayori began speaking again, making Monika wish she was back in the world where she had finally done everyone a favor and gotten rid of her. As she thought that, she realized how cruel it sounded and felt a little bad, but it still remained in the back of her mind, hiding in the shadows of her brain.

“I’m so excited to share my poem with the other club members! I can’t wait to see what everyone wrote, especially you, Monika!”

Monika realized that she had forgotten to write a poem for the club. She had been to busy with the task the phone person had sent her, and after that she had been far too tired and distraught to bother with it. She wondered what she was going to do. It would be awful if the leader of the club didn’t do the only thing she’d assigned! She mostly remembered the poem she’d used last time. She’d have to scrawl that down quickly and hope nobody noticed.

“I’m excited to see everyone’s poems too, Sayori. It’ll be quite interesting to see the different literary styles and themes that we’ll all have come up with!”

“Yeah. I haven’t seen any of Natsuki’s writing, I wonder what hers will be like.”

Monika already knew exactly what Monika’s writing was like. This first poem would be mediocre, then she’d improve, and she’d learn a lesson or something. Though with the player gone, there was no guarantee that the outcome would be the same, would there? Natsuki’s writing had been influenced by the player. All of the girls’ had. While the hole left by the player’s absence from the world was most noticeable in Sayori, Monika had seen that the other two seemed just a tad confused as well. This was a game built around them interacting with him, after all. Even if they had backstories less dependent on him than Sayori, they still lived in a world where they essentially had once had a purpose that had now been taken away from them.

Monika didn’t even realize she’d been acting on autopilot until she nearly walked past the door to the entrance to the Literature Club. She quickly corrected her course before it seemed like she hadn’t been paying attention. Sayori didn’t seem to notice.

Monika entered the room and saw that it was just the same as the last time she’d lived through it, except without the player. Wait… No, it wasn’t. It was subtle, but she had an eye for these things. Little things were out of place. A pencil here, a notebook there, a chair in a different position. Tiny things like that. Natsuki and Yuri were in slightly different spots as well.

Monika searched her brain, trying to remember her lines for today. She didn’t want to mess with time with too much, if that was what was going on. Well, she’d already murdered dozens, but she had to do what she could. Maybe she could still correct course. Just cut out anything that had to do with the character and repeat what she’d said last time, right?

That idea quickly proved to be misguided. Natsuki opened her mouth right after she saw Sayori and Monika walk in, and Monika definitely knew it wasn’t the same thing she’d said last time. It was minor, sure, but things were changing.

“Where were you guys? Are we going to make it a tradition for the president to be late to every meeting?”

Yuri looked up from her book after hearing Natsuki and noticed that Monika and Sayori had arrived. “I’m sure they were just held up, Natsuki.’

Natsuki let out a trademark “humph” and left it at that. Sayori blushed. “Yeah, we just lost our way a bit, but we’re here now, so the meeting can officially start.” She looked expectantly at Monika, who realized that that was her cue. She decided it was pointless to try and follow the script anymore. It would seem more out of place if anything.

“Yeah, sorry guys! Let’s just get to business, shall we? Has everyone brought a poem that they wrote?”

All the girls pulled out folded-up sheets of paper that they had written on the night before. Monika said “Great! I’ll be right back, I have to use the restroom. You all share your poems among yourselves and I’ll join in when I get back.” She quickly left the room and walked a bit away before pulling out a sheet of paper and quickly copying down the poem she’d used from last time. It would make even less sense this time now that there was no player but it didn’t really matter. It was abstract either way. As she finished quickly writing down the poem, she tucked it in her pocket and looked up. She saw a man mopping the floors, a janitor presumably. It wouldn’t have even really registered until she saw his hair. It was blonde and messy, almost exactly like the man who had brushed past her the night before. She froze as he looked up at her. He seemed to notice her and smiled. His smile was a cruel one, the kind of smile someone who had just been talking behind your back and knew you didn’t know would give you. He turned around and disappeared into an adjacent hallway. Monika ran after to try and confront him, but he was already gone, as if he’d never been there in the first place.

Monika shuddered. Every moment it felt more and more like she had been trapped in some sort of hell. She shook it off the best she could and made her way back to the other girls in the club. She presented her poem, and they were none the wiser as to the fact that she’d scribbled it down right behind their backs. She looked at the others and gave the same feedback as last time, as they were all the exact same down to the letter. At least that hadn’t changed. Natsuki and Yuri still seemed rather chilly towards each other, though this time no argument broke out. That was interesting. Was the character really that integral to their dynamic? Rather than boil over into open confrontation, the two were just being somewhat cold to each other. Well, that saved her the trouble of having to manage the two at least.

After the poem exchange was all over, Monika encouraged the club members to do some reading and writing and general brainstorming, and told everyone that they would be doing another poem tomorrow. God, this entire thing was pointless without the character. The entire club and game had been programmed around him being there. Now that he wasn’t, huge chunks of what should be happening were just absent. Nobody really knew what to say, different ideas and conversations didn’t properly flow, and there just wasn’t enough to do. There was a fair chance that in the coming days the club just wouldn’t be able to function and Monika would have to end meetings early since there wouldn’t be anything to do and she really didn’t care to try and keep them going out of her own enjoyment of it.

Monika sat around and scribbled meaningless phrases for a long time, even after Yuri and Natsuki had both said their goodbyes and headed home, until she was finally approached by Sayori.

“Hey, uh, Monika, could I talk to you about something?”

Oh lord. This was when she had started guiding Sayori towards… well, a darker path the last time. It had almost been too easy, but with the player gone there was no need. Monika wondered what it would be like if she actually tried helping Sayori rather than sending her towards her doom. Couldn’t hurt to try as long as it didn’t take too much time, right?

“Yeah, what do you need?”

“Well, uh, recently I’ve been feeling kind of…” She paused and didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Are you okay, Sayori?”

The girl quickly snapped to her senses. “Yeah, sorry, it’s just kind of hard to talk about.” She took a deep breath. “Recently, I’ve been feeling… empty, I guess is the best word for it. Not just in a sad way, but as in I feel like there’s actually something missing. I don’t know what it is or even what it’s missing from, like if it’s missing from me or from my life or even from just the world, I think.” She looked down, nervous and unsatisfied with her own explanation.

Monika truly felt sorry for the girl. The game already had set her up to be miserable, and now she didn’t even have the character to live for. She really had no reason to live in any possible sense.

“Well… that’s quite concerning. How long has this been going on?”

“I… I don’t know. It got really really bad just a few days ago, but it seems like I’m so sad that even my memories are now missing that something, like there’s a little void, a missing puzzle piece. It’s almost beyond sadness, more like… pure emptiness.”

“Oh god, that’s horrible, Sayori…” Monika leaned forwards and grabbed Sayori’s hand. “How bad is it?”

Sayori’s eyes were starting to well up. “The past few days… something is really really wrong. Is it really just me? It feels like something in the world, like everyone should be miserable. But you don’t feel it, nobody else feels it, it’s just me because there’s something wrong with me…”

Monika wanted more than anything in the world to tell Sayori that it wasn’t just her, that there was something missing and she felt it too and that she knew exactly what it was. She wanted to tell Sayori everything that had happened and break down and apologize, but she knew she couldn’t. No matter how she felt, she couldn’t get it out of her mind that the girl in front of her was nothing more than lines of code, operating to give the illusion of reality. If there was any real mind there at all, it was the same level of thought process as a cockroach, not a human. It could interpret data from its environment and give an instinctual response. That was all.

Monika thought for a second. Even if Sayori wasn’t really there, she still felt some obligation. Her conscience, her emotions, they were too primal to understand all these distinctions about logic and code and what was real and what was fake. They told her that she had to try and help, and she knew it would be better than anything else.

“No, no…” She moved forwards and grabbed Sayori and hugged her. “Nothing is wrong with you. If there’s something wrong with you, then we live in a twisted world.” Truer than Sayori would ever know. “There’s nothing wrong at all with you. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

Sayori now had tears flowing down her cheeks, though she managed to maintain herself. “B-but it just doesn’t get better… It won’t ever be better. I feel so alone.”

Monika pulled back and looked straight at Sayori. “You aren’t alone. You have friends, you have the Literature Club, and I will always be here for you.”

Sayori wiped away her tears, though it did little to stop them from quickly streaming down her cheeks once more. “I don’t deserve my friends. I don’t deserve any of this.”

“You deserve so much better than what you have, Sayori. You deserve to be happy. Your friends all know that. I know that.”

Sayori choked back a sob. “Then how do I make it better? What am I doing wrong? Why do I have to be miserable?” 

Monika thought for a moment. “Well… We’ve been writing poems, have you thought about trying to get your thoughts out that way? It sounds like what you’re going through isn’t easy to explain to others, but using creative mediums like poetry you can express your thoughts in a less literal way. You can’t fix something unless you know what’s wrong, and if you can’t describe it in a traditional way, maybe you can get a better idea of the issue by exploring it through metaphor and abstraction.” She hoped that was a good answer. She was terrified that she’d said something wrong and only made it worse.

Sayori looked at Monika. “I’ll try that…”

“I know it all sounds fake, that it seems like it won’t work, but really just give it a shot. You don’t even have to show it to everyone, you can just write for yourself if that’s what makes you more comfortable.”

Sayori nodded, wiped away her tears a final time, then took a deep breath. “Okay.” She looked down at the floor. “I’m so sorry to bother you with my stupid problems, I’m sorry to waste everyone’s time.”

“You’re not wasting my time. Please, come to me whenever you’re feeling like this, it breaks my heart and I want to do anything I can to help.” 

“Alright.” Sayori stood up shakily. “I should probably head home, it’s getting late.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay? Do you want me to walk with you?”

“No, it’s fine, really. Thank you for listening to me.” She headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.” Monika echoed, watching the other girl leave. She could only pray that without her meddling, Sayori would make it through. She almost regretted what she’d done last time. She knew there had been no other option, but even if Sayori was just code she was too good at seeming real. The game was too good at seeming real.

\--

As Monika walked home, alone in her thoughts, she was snapped back to reality by a buzzing in her pocket. Pulling up her phone, she saw that she had missed a call and had a new message. Her heart sunk as she opened it up to listen.

“Hey, this is your manager at the pizza place. We have a delivery that we need sent out right now. I texted you two addresses, pick it up at the first one and drop it off at the second.” The message paused, and it seemed like it was about to end before the person on the other end spoke up again as if they’d forgotten something. “Oh, be sure to bring Richard. This isn’t a normal delivery, so no need to use your tools. The customer is perfectly friendly.” Then he hung up for real.

Monika checked her texts and sure enough there were two spots to head to. She rifled through her bag and grabbed the rooster mask, but didn’t put it on just yet. She rushed off; neither address was very far, and she could run to both of them in decent time.

The first location was a gas station. She quickly found what she was looking for: a briefcase that had been left under a dumpster. She clawed it out then put on her mask. The second address took her a bit longer to reach, a run of about twenty minutes, but it helped keep the fear off her mind. The location turned out to be an alley of sorts behind an abandoned building. 

The ‘customer’ was clear the instant she arrived. He was a very overweight man in a black t-shirt and ripped blue jeans. He had what appeared to be a scaly green shirt tied around his waist. A lit cigarette was nestled between his fingers. What made him obvious, however, was the mask. It was like a snake, frills showing on either side. Though the only part of the man’s face that was visible was through the eyeholes, one could have mistaken it for a real snake’s head as his eyes were so snakelike that they seemed to just meld into the mask. She squinted. He seemed familiar somehow.

She approached the man with the briefcase. He tossed his cigarette to the ground and stomped on it. “Goddamn took you long enough.” When he spoke that feeling of uneasy familiarity came back. How did she know this man?

Monika ignored his jab. “Who are you people? Why are you doing this to me?”

The man gave a gravelly chuckle. “Not the right guy to ask, sweetheart. I do what I’m told. And if it was up to me and I had control over someone like you, I can think of a lot more things I’d be telling you to do than ‘deliver pizzas’.” She could almost feel his creepy grin assaulting her through both their rubber masks.

Monika tossed the briefcase at his chest, knocking him back a bit. “Fuck off, creep.” She whipped around and stormed off. She’d done what she had come here to do. She wasn’t going to spend more time here just for more of this gentleman’s lovely company.

As she left, the masked man whistled and then broke into another wheezy chuckle. “I’ll have to ask the boys who’re sending us messages for your number.” With that, he also turned around and meandered off to whatever gutter he’d probably spawned from.

Well, that had been far less productive than Monika had been hoping. She thought that maybe the man would finally speak up and help her figure out what was going on, but instead he’d just been a creepy asshole with as little idea as she had. His voice, though, that was something. He seemed like someone she knew, but she couldn’t pin it down. She couldn’t imagine how she’d meet a middle-aged asshole like that, but she knew that somehow she’d seen him before.

She thought about it on the run home, but nothing came up. She resolved to look it up later. She had other important things to do. As soon as she got home, she jumped on her computer and looked up the club she was supposed to be ‘visiting’ tomorrow. It was a rather odd establishment. It was in a definitely less savory part of town, but it was actually something of a tourist hub. Lots of Americans went there to ‘party hard and get drunk with the locals’. She had no idea why the people who were leaving messages would want her to target the place.

Monika acted sick at dinner so it wouldn’t be suspicious if she took the day off for feeling ill tomorrow. She just couldn’t face school before doing what she was going to do, and besides she would need time to prepare both physically and mentally. She left the table as soon as she could and went up to her room. When she was sure nobody would come in to her room, she sat on her bed and cried her eyes out. She couldn’t do it again. She just couldn’t.

What could they do to her? What could they possibly do to enforce their will? These were just some creeps, probably glitches in the code fucking with her. She wouldn’t do this. Monika pulled up her phone and texted the number that she had been getting the mysterious messages. “Not playing your bullshit game. Get someone else.” With that, she went to bed. She’d be okay.

\--

The next morning, after the date and location flashed again, Monika woke up feeling a tiny bit better. The world was still fucked and the character was still gone, but she didn’t have to go along with these freaks trying to control her. She checked her phone to make sure they hadn’t responded. She put her hand to her mouth and widened her eyes with shock when she saw what they’d sent.

It was two texts. 

The first one was an image of Yuri, on the ground of some road at night, bleeding and bruised and unconscious. 

The second one was a message.

“She didn’t see us. We left her alive this time. Choose carefully.”

Monika fell backwards into her bedsheets and sobbed. She couldn’t escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, this still exists. Updates might be more often, they might not, depends on my life. It almost certainly won't die, there will eventually be another chapter and with some luck it might be soon.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're at all familiar with Hotline Miami, I think you can guess in broad strokes where the next few chapters are going to go. Nobody's going to have a very good time, that's all that's certain. Anyways, if you enjoyed this story (or hated it with every fiber of your being) then be sure to leave a comment or some feedback, and hopefully another chapter will be coming relatively soon.


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